ISIS Have Landed in Kinsale

8th Oct 2014

Terror group ISIS are unloading tanks and troops in Kinsale. They have declared their intention to wreak havoc on the Rebel county and the rest of the island and to make it part of their global caliphate of oppression. Would you take up arms? Would you fight to the death for your county? 

Most of us have spent our first-world lives looking down our noses at anyone even partially sympathetic to violent Republicanism but confronted by a the spectre of wanton beheadings, crucifixions, kidnappings, gruesome torture by what can only be described as raving lunatics what would we do if this or any other dark force arrived on Cork’s coast?

It is fine to sing ‘give peace a chance’ at university rallies and fist-pumping Monday night socialist meetings in city centre hotels when such extreme violence is at arm’s length overseas and neatly placed on the ‘all violence is wrong’ naughty step. But what if it was just a few kilometres away and thundering its way ominously towards Cork city centre? Imagine tuning into Red FM reports of rocketfire in Riverstick, bombings in Belgooley and beheadings in Ballinhassig.
 

Would we pathetically hope that sharing a “C’mere ISIS, please stay away from Cork” Facebook page might make them head east for the tunnel and on up the M8 instead of roaring up the City link and rolling out their murderous mayhem in the city?

An incredulous newscaster announces that the army are handing out assault weapons at Collins’ Barracks to any adult willing to fight for the city. They recommend you check out ‘how to fire a rifle’ on Youtube as they hand over guns and a box full of bullets.

Car owners are asked to park their cars across major approach roads to create barricades to slow the enemy’s advance (think anywhere in Ballintemple during a Saturday night league match in Pairc Úi Rinn).

There will be no air support except for the fella who did that cool drone video, Comrade Ray Fogarty, and the seagull bums that line up on overhead wires along the quays.

So would you transform from an ordinary everyday Corkonian going about your ordinary everyday business into a hardened fighting machine like Tom Barry and the Flying Columns of west Cork did or would you run for the hills of Dungourney?
 

Mick O'Sullivan, Pat O'Sullivan & Sean Murray (Cork No.1 Brigade) in 1921 six months after the burning of Cork city by the Black & Tans

Drinking Murphy’s, going to matches down the Pairc and the Cross, eating tripe and drisheen, speaking with a proper Cork accent and other such enjoyable ‘cultural’ practices might all be contemporary proof of our true love of the Rebel county but if some dark force wanted to level it would you fight for it?

That question was asked of Corkonians repeatedly over many turbulent centuries and many chose the battlefield in various forms. Now the populations of many unfortunate towns in the middle-east are facing the same horrible dilemma that our generation have been shielded from: kill or be killed.

Of course, the threat of an invasion of Cork is extremely remote but as we watch the decimation of great towns and cities in the Middle east and Africa we should value our own one even more.
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